How Do I Add Rigor to My Curricula? (Part 4)

Once you’ve used the curriculum evaluation process outlined in Part 3 of this series to expose missing thinking levels in assignments, you’ll need to fill those gaps. This is an opportunity to put your own critical and creative thinking skills to work to design interesting and challenging activities.

Consider just one academic or elective subject at a time because rigor may look very different in each course depending on the student’s strengths and weaknesses. Keep this in mind as you design new activities. Remember, your goal is to move your student to a place of challenge and hard work where they may make mistakes.

You can regulate the difficulty of any Bloom’s level by making the subject matter of an activity more or less challenging. For example, you can require them to think at the level of evaluation with a fairly simple prompt or with a more complex one. Oftentimes, the object/topic being evaluated will determine how challenging the evaluation is.

Think of how easy it would be to evaluate three brands of chocolate ice cream and argue the merits of one over the other two. Now, contrast that to being asked to evaluate the construction of three brands of car tires and argue the merits of one over the other two. Familiarity and a solid understanding of subject matter make analyzing, evaluating, and creating much easier for students.

For this reason, you must NEVER EVER skip the lower-order remembering (knowledge) and understanding (comprehension) levels of learning. Content knowledge gives students the solid foundation on which they will build their higher-level thinking skills.

So, when designing activities at any of Bloom’s thinking levels, consider your student’s natural aptitude and interest in the subject along with their level of understanding.

Fill Curriculum Learning Gaps

In Part 3 of this series, I discussed how to evaluate your curriculum to determine which learning level(s) are not included in the assignments/activities provided. Now, you need to fill those gaps. Using the “Creating Outcomes Using Bloom’s Taxonomy” worksheet, locate the key question and the list of verbs for the missing learning level. Choose an action verb from the list that reflects a kind of thinking your student needs. For even more choices, check out “Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy Verbs For 21st Century Students.” Brainstorm assessable activities your student would enjoy that require that kind of thinking. Use the bulleted lists below to kickstart your brainstorming.

Add Applying Activities

Applying activities ask students to use information in a new way, meaning they implement their knowledge to prove they understand how it works in a new or real situation.

Examples:

• Use information in a text to make inferences and draw conclusions about a character’s motivations. (ELA)

• Identify the people and elements in a political cartoon based on knowledge of the time period or event. (History)

• Complete a science experiment in which students generate and test a hypothesis based on ideas they’ve learned. (Science)

• Use understanding of a mathematical property, theorem, or principle to solve a problem or draw a graph. (Math)

Add Analyzing Activities

Analyzing activities ask students to break down a real example of a concept and to examine relationships between parts to infer or draw conclusions.

Examples:

• Identify a dynamic character in a story and analyze how he/she changes and grows throughout the story with specific events to support ideas. (ELA)

• Explain how a political cartoon pushes a specific political viewpoint. (History)

• Analyze data obtained from experimentation to explain relationships between tested components. (Science)

• Explain relationships between numbers and/or variables in a given equation. (Math)

Add Evaluating Activities

Evaluating activities ask students to evaluate and critique products using specific criteria and to give evidence and reasoning for their opinions.

Examples:

• Discuss whether a character makes an ethical decision and determine if another choice would have been better. (ELA)

• Compare and contrast political cartoons from dueling viewpoints to determine which is a more effective commentary. (History)

• Note and describe errors made during experiment testing. (Science)

• Examine and explain the strategy used to solve a problem to determine accuracy. (Math)

Add Creating Activities

Creating activities ask students to use the knowledge and insight they’ve gained from lower-order activities purposefully to design something original, typically a product of some kind.

Examples:

• Write and/or enact an original dialogue with a character to help him/her resolve a specific conflict in a story. (ELA)

• Draw an original political cartoon that makes a particular statement on a given event. (History)

• Design a new experiment that avoids errors previously detected or that extends testing the components in a new way to provide additional needed data. (Science)

• Use your understanding to design an original problem that applies a mathematical principle correctly. (Math)

Add Executive Function skills

Executive function skills can be added to any academic or elective course.

Examples:

• Orally walk through the steps in a project and have students set up a personal plan for completion.

• Require an organized notebook (esp. for middle school) and teach ways to organize notes and study materials.

• Require a daily planner to build time management and focus skills.

• Give short- and long-term assignments simultaneously and require elements of the long-term one to be due alongside short-term ones.

• Collect assignments in their drafted stage and give constructive feedback that must be used to improve the final copy.

• Teach learning styles and help students identify theirs.

• Use scoring rubrics and evaluation sheets so students can see exactly where they made mistakes.

• Discuss how unrecognized emotions toward a subject/assignment can impact our results.

Implement the Ideas in This Series

Parents of elementary students should be able to make changes to curricula without much student discussion; however, simple explanations of the learning process and executive function skills could help them see the real-life value of their schoolwork.

Parents of secondary students will gain buy-in by approaching the topic of rigor head-on so that students understand the goal and the personal benefits for them in raising the challenge level of their work. Here are some ideas for how to engage them:

1. Talk to your students about what academic rigor is and how it will equip them for future success regardless of vocation.

2. Explain what executive function skills are and how all of us need them to be successful in life. Help your students identify areas of weakness that could use extra support and additional practice.

3. Ask your students to identify their perceived academic strengths and weaknesses with supporting examples and reasons. Confirm or question them to reach agreement.

4. Discuss the differences between lower- and higher-order thinking and share the missing gaps and findings from your curriculum evaluations.

5. Start small. Don’t try to overhaul every course in one year. Start with your student’s favorite class and make sure they are working in a place of challenge to maximize their strengths. Alternatively, you could start with your student’s least favorite class and add variety to lower-order tasks.

6. Create assignments that ask students to think more deeply, not just do more of the same. For example, instead of asking your students to write more essays, ask them to write more meaningful essays that require analyzing, interpreting, pulling in content from outside resources, responding to a critic’s evaluation, etc. Fewer, more carefully composed analytical essays are better than many quickly drafted opinion essays.

Every homeschooling parent can add academic rigor to their curricula. Keep in mind, many school days that include learning brand new concepts will entail working in the lower-order levels as students recall and fully understand the new ideas they are learning. This is why varying these kinds of activities is vital to student engagement.

The critical step is to move your students to the higher levels of learning once they’ve gained mastery at the application level so that they engage in more challenging critical and creative thinking activities. The point of rigor will likely look different for each student. Your goal is to discover the line between what’s easy and what’s challenging and nudge them across it.

Elevate your expectations! If you need help designing activities for your students, reach out. I offer free 15-minute consultations to determine if I can help. Let’s brainstorm together!

For further help developing activities:

“Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy Verbs For 21st Century Students”

Bloom's Taxonomy Question Stems - Castleberry ISD

How to Ask Application Questions in Lessons

10 Executive Functioning Skills: The Ultimate Guide - The Pathway 2 Success

Lesson Planning using Bloom's Taxonomy in my Math Classroom (math help)

Writing ELA Objectives (ELA help)